Interview with Katie Leclerc on the Switched at Birth finale!
Glitter Magazine recently sat down with Katie Leclerc to talk about the Switched at Birth finale tonight, her character, Daphne, how long it took her to learn sign language, and how she helps others. We love that she gets star struck like everyone else. Read on to find out about this amazing actress!
GLITTER: The spring finale for Switched at Birth is tonight. What can you tease about the finale?
KATIE: There is a lot that happens. We’ve come a long way. Daphne becomes interested in medicine this past season. Who saw that coming? Not me! Things are great at Switched at Birth land. I’m really sad that the season finale is happening because I feel like it’s such a great story line.
I can’t wait to see what happens next season. We are coming back for 10 more. There is hope for our future! Its senior year, so I thought that maybe we would get some prom or graduation action, but it seems like we are going to slow time down a bit. Maybe we don’t want the show to be over so quickly! Maybe we don’t want to graduate! It’s been great. We’ve been at it for 3 years, and the cast members are so much my family. I don’t know what I would do without them. We love each other like a family does. We crack each other up. It’s the best job I could ever ask for.
GLITTER: How has Daphne changed since the first season?
KATIE: I think that she’s a lot stronger. When she first found out about the switch, she was very sweet, very innocent, and looking forward to having this new family. As opposed to Bay, who was a little more cynical and she obviously had daddy issues. I think that she is growing into this family and is accepted into it, though. She’s stronger. I don’t know where I would be without my family, and they give me a lot of strength, so I think it’s similar for Daphne. It’s hard to be a teenage girl these days!
GLITTER: Are you like Daphne in any way?
KATIE: Oh gosh. I love Daphne. She’s strong, confident, and she’s honest. She has really high morals, and she doesn’t like excuses. I freakin’ love her. I would totally try to be Daphne’s friend in real life. I feel like she’d be anybody’s friend, so we can make it happen.
I also played basketball in high school, so later on the show runner was like, “What sport do you play?” and I told her basketball so they incorporated that. My family owns a Chinese restaurant in Texas, so I felt close to Daphne when they wanted her to cook.
GLITTER: So you’re from Texas, and you moved to California, how did this happen?
KATIE: Here’s the story. I was born in Texas and lived in Colorado for about nine years. I was bullied pretty severely by this group of girls that stunk. I learned a lot of things, and they made my life so difficult that my family said, “Okay. We tried to fix this, and we can’t, so we’re moving.” And we moved to San Diego!
GLITTER: That’s so nice that your family was so supportive.
KATIE: I still to this day can’t believe their sacrifices. It was such a logical choice at the time, but it really didn’t feel like there was any other option. I couldn’t spend any more time with those girls, and I’m so thankful that my family did that.
If I could look those girls in the eyes, I would say thank you. Because without it, my family never would have moved to San Diego. I heard a radio ad driving to school one day that said, “Do you want to be a star?” and I was like, “YEAH! I DO!” and my mom set something up with them, and I got acting classes. I got my first commercial when I was 15. It was a Pepsi commercial.
GLITTER: The show is like none other on TV right now, do you think that there is a certain stigma on the hearing impaired?
KATIE: I think the show has helped a lot. I love getting comments on my social media about people joining their interpreting program at their university because of Switched at Birth, and things like that. I find that very inspiring.
I was just talking to somebody about a situation she had. She was at a restaurant, and there was a deaf couple and the lady left her sweater behind at the booth. The girl was a fan of Switched at Birth, so she walked over to the booth and grabbed the sweater. She approached the lady, and tapped her on the shoulder and told her that she left her sweater. The lady signed back “Thank you” and the girl signed back “you’re welcome.” She said that she would have never known how to say “you’re welcome,” or how to even approach this deaf women by putting her hand on her shoulder if not for the show.
People are afraid of things that they aren’t familiar with, and the deaf world are so very separate, maybe not as much now. I do feel like Switched at Birth has helped at melting those two worlds, and it’s great to hear stories like that. It’s great to hear stories about everyday people being “brave” enough to approach a deaf person in an everyday sort of way.
I feel like we’re contributing to educating people about the deaf culture and saying, “There are no different.” The only thing they can’t do is hear.
GLITTER: How long did it take you to learn sign language?
KATIE: Funny story. I actually learned sign language in high school. I was 17, and really bad at Spanish and I had to have a foreign language to graduate. My sister is an ASL teacher, and I said, “At least you won’t have written homework!”
When I was twenty, I got something called Meniere’s disease, which is fluid retention in your ear. And I’m very proud to be able to talk about this disease because so many people have it, and don’t know that they do. It’s very unique to each patient. It’s a problem.
People write me on Instagram or Twitter and say, “I have Meniere’s disease, I was just diagnosed. I read that you had it and I asked my doctor, and I have it. What do I do?” So that’s cool to be able to help in that way.
So many celebrities have it! Like Ryan Adams has Meniere’s disease, Heather Locklear has Miniere’s disease, and none of these people are talking about it. I think I’m in a unique position where I’m already affiliated with the deaf culture, and I’m not afraid of hearing loss or anything like that. I get to talk about it loudly.
GLITTER: How do you get the deaf accent?
KATIE: It was the hardest thing I had ever had to do as an actor up to that point. I called my sister, who is like I said, an ASL teacher. I told her I had this project and that I needed help!
My first audition I didn’t use the voice at all, and they said, “Hey, could you think about trying on a deaf accent?” and I was like “Yeah…” and I was so nervous! I watched a lot of YouTube videos, and a lot of documentaries about deaf culture, and a lot of them I had already seen, but it was a refresher to hear how a deaf person speaks.
I had been exposed to the deaf culture many years prior to Switched at Birth, so I was familiar with it. My sister and I mapped out an audiogram for Daphne specifically. Based on her specific hearing loss, these are the things she’d be able to say, and these are the things that she wouldn’t.
It took me FOREVER. Now it’s second nature, I can just turn the switch on. People are so shocked to hear that I’m not deaf. They tell me I don’t sound like Daphne, and I’m like, “No, I don’t.” I love it when people really focus on thinking that they are speaking to a deaf person. Which is awesome, because they learned something from the show, they make eye contact and don’t turn their head away, and all of these other “rules.”
So they meet me on the street, and they try to talk slower, and I look away and respond to something they say, and they’re like “Wait a minute…” I think it means I’m doing something write! I’m glad that I’m portraying this character enough that people actually thing I’m deaf.
I’m excited for the day in my career that I can speak my wings as an actor. I’m not trying to shake Daphne off at all, that’s not what I mean, but I am excited that people will go, “Wow, she worked her butt off on that series.” I’m excited for that.
GLITTER: Did you always want to be an actress?
KATIE: I went through a lot of phases. I wanted to be a chemist. Then I wanted to be a marine biologist. But then I was Annie in a play, and I got the bug. It was good exposure to that world.
GLITTER: So you did theatre before TV?
KATIE: Yeah, in high school. It was smaller productions, but yeah! I did lots of theatre.
GLITTER: Do you ever want to go back to school?
KATIE: I don’t think I do. I took a lot of classes, I went to Film school so I could tell my parents I went to school. I just didn’t have to do a math class, but I learned how to budget a film. I learned where to put the camera, and what lens, and what aperture, etc.
GLITTER: So you could go behind the camera as well?
KATIE: Oh, I would love to. I want to direct, and I see my time on Switched at Birth as still learning. It’s an education just to be on set, and people would die to have the job that I have, and I’m so lucky to freakin’ have it. I want to soak it up. I ask people about the cameras, and I’m trying to continue learning. One day I want to direct or produce, but I never want to stop acting either.
GLITTER: What’s the best advice you’ve ever been given?
KATIE: I was competing in this HUGE acting competition. There was 700 girls in my category, and there were 10 other categories. It was nationwide. My mom and I fly to New York, and unfortunately my dad couldn’t be there with us, and he sent a fruit basket. The card in the basket said, “Define the moment. Don’t let the moment define you.”
It’s my favorite thing anyone has ever told me. I believe that. You have the power to affect whatever situation you’re in by how you look at it. You have to have the right mindset. If you go in with good intention, the outcome will be that much better. In every moment of your life. I try to have positive vibes as much as possible. We are so capable.
GLITTER: If you could have dinner with anyone alive or dead who would it be and what would you ask them at the dinner table?
KATIE: Literally thirty minutes ago I was at Whole Foods, and I was purchasing my ingredients for the fish tacos I’m going have for dinner tonight. I turn around, and Joshua Jackson was standing right behind me. I started freaking out. I was like, “I have to say something!” I immediately called my fiancé after and told him. I turned to him and told him I was a fan, and he was just really gracious and really sweet. We chatted for two seconds, but it was cool.
I wanted to tell him to watch Switched at Birth because I’ve seen everything he was ever in ever.
GLITTER: Do you ever get star struck?
KATIE: I get excited to meet anybody. I feel like, it’s okay to be excited. And I get excited a lot about stupid things, but I feel like maybe it’s not “star struck,” but I appreciated such good talent. I get a little bit fangirl-ish. I’m an open book. I wear my heart on my sleeve.
GLITTER: What advice would you give your younger self?
KATIE: I am the most impatient person in the world, and I’m still working on it. I would have started it at a younger of an age, if I could’ve. Especially in my career, I was in such a hurry to get to the place where I had a series. If I had any advice, I would say “Calm down. You’re gonna get there. You have to be patient.”
I gave up on acting at one point, I was sick of eating Top Ramen. So I went home to Texas, and worked at the Chinese Restaurant and said, “This is not the life for me.” I came back to LA and my family said I was crazy. I literally have 12 bucks, and that’s it. I lived on my friend’s couches. I had been acting for 8 years, so I had a friend group in LA. I had to find the next friend that would let me crash.
I feel like I had to take that break so I could appreciate everything. I got lost in the feeling of not being able to pay my bills, and that’s not why you are there.
I had an acting coach ask my class, “Why are you here?” and everyone raised their hand and said, “I have a passion for the arts, and blah blah.” And he looked at us and said, “You’re wrong. You are here because you thought you could make it. You’re here in Los Angeles, California because you could make it. You believed in yourself enough to come, and if you didn’t you would have stayed in Iowa doing community theatre. You are here because you had the confidence that you could make that happen for yourself.”
That was so eye opening. It wasn’t like, “I believe in you.” But that YOU believe in you. That’s why we are here.
GLITTER: Thank you for talking to us today, Katie! We believe in you too! Keep inspiring others!
Photo credit: Bobby Quillard
Editorial Director | Writer | Tweet me @heatherriccio
